


There's Always Room For New Adventure

by Micheoff



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF
Genre: Car Accidents, Family Issues, First Meetings, Fluff and Humor, Hitchhiking, Light Angst, M/M, Road Trips, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 20:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6129564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Micheoff/pseuds/Micheoff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Michael picks up a hitchhiker while road tripping. It’s not the worst decision he’s ever made, but the way it happens probably could have been better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's Always Room For New Adventure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [birdpeeps](https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdpeeps/gifts).



> Alternate fic clickbait title: YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE THIS COUPLE'S STORY OF HOW THEY MET BUT BY THE END OF IT YOUR HOPE OF FINDING LOVE IN UNEXPECTED PLACES WILL BE RESTORED. 
> 
> Happy birthday, Viri! Raychael is the gift that keeps on giving.

The first thing Michael thinks after hitting what he assumes to be Bigfoot with the front of his car at no earlier than midnight is that he doesn’t have car insurance. His second thought immediately thereafter is something along the lines of: “Shit, what if PETA tries to sue me for this on behalf of Bigfoot? Or the human race like in the Bee Movie?” His third thought isn’t so much of a thought as it’s something more along the lines of a bunch of curse words as he slams on the breaks, parks the car, and doesn’t even bother to take the keys out of the ignition as he tumbles out of the driver’s side.

“I fucked up, I fucked up, I fucked up,” he’s repeating, hand on the hood of the car despite the warmth as he rounds the passenger fender. “Holy shit, I’m so sorry,” he says abruptly, staring wide-eyed and shocked at the very, very not Bigfoot outline laying on the side of the road with a bag under his head and groaning in pain.

Michael falls to the ground on his knees next to the shape of the man and pulls his phone out to call an ambulance, rushing out, “Are you bleeding anywhere? No, no, don’t move, my name’s Michael Jones and I’m an EMT. Tell me where it hurts, but don’t move and breathe slowly,” in between him giving out his location and as much information on the situation as he can to the woman on the other end of the phone.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m not cut anywhere or anything, I’m just winded. You barely even hit me and my duffel probably broke most of the fall,” the guy, with brown skin and dark hair, around Michael’s age with light scruff on his chin, tells him, but Michael isn’t totally convinced.

“You could be in shock, you can’t know that you’re all right, even if you don’t feel anything. Just stay there until the ambulance gets here and keep that duffel bag under your head.” Michael slips his fingers under the sleeve of the guy’s jacket and checks his pulse, thankful that it’s seemingly normal despite how hard his heart must be beating from adrenaline.

“Hey, I’ve got no problems with that.”

“You’re talking, so that’s good, but triage can take a while even when an EMT calls for an ambulance,” Michael informs while he makes quick work of pulling his hoodie off to lay it over the guy on the ground. “So what’s your name and should I call anyone for you to meet us when we get to the hospital?”

The guy laughs, but it’s bereft of any sense of mirth. “I’m Narvaez comma Ray if you’re gonna put it on my tombstone, but you can call me H and S.”

“‘H and S?’ What’s that mean?”

“Dude,” Ray says in a tone that indicates that it’s blatantly obvious and Michael is clearly missing it. “Hit and Save. Get it, like hit and run? Only you didn’t run.”

“I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t even need saving if I hadn’t, y’know, hit you with my car. But it’s good to know you can find humor in this situation even when you’re laying on the ground and probably concussed,” Michael tells him and he means it.

Not the concussion part, though kind of, but the part about how Ray is joking around. He’s only ever had a handful of car accident victims keep talking when he’s gotten on the scene, and Ray is one of the only ones he’s ever heard making light of the situation.

“Always looking on the bright side of things,” Ray says with a slight smile, and then he makes a show of looking around with his eyes while keeping his head completely still and asks, “Hey, do you see my glasses anywhere? I’m kind of blind right now and I’d love to see the face of the guy who hit a guy while going the very dangerous speed of, like, five miles an hour at the most.”

Michael laughs, but looks around until he finds the thick-rimmed glasses that must belong to Ray under the tire of the car. Sadly, however, they’re twisted and obviously broken, glass shattered in one eye while the other is cracked, and when Michael hands them to Ray he snorts.

“I don’t know why I thought my glasses would be okay,” he says while holding the cracked side up to his eye like a monocle. “Oh, dude, I could be wrong about this, ‘cause I’m pretty fuckin’ blind, but you look like you’re a modern day MacGyver except younger and an EMT.”

“I don’t know what that means, but sorry about your glasses. I guess I ran them over.”

“Hey—” Ray shrugs as best he can while trying to remain mostly still on the ground “—better the glasses than me.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Michael agrees. He’s about to ask Ray if he needs Michael to call someone for him again, because Ray never answered him, but he stops to turn and look behind himself as the telltale sign of an ambulance’s siren going off gets progressively louder. “The cavalry has arrived just in time.”

“Well,” Ray drawls while the ambulance stops a short distance away, “I think arriving before I was hit probably would’ve been better, but...” He lets the sentence drop there with another half-shrug.

Michael laughs, tells Ray he’s right, and then gets up and meets one of the other EMTs halfway, explaining the situation and Ray’s triage while the other EMT gets the stretcher out and puts a neck brace on Ray.

When Ray is in the ambulance and everything is good to go, Michael assures Ray that he’s going to follow behind in his car and stay with him while he’s in the hospital, despite Ray saying that he’s not going to sue him or file an insurance claim or anything and that Michael doesn’t have to come along.

•••

The room Ray is in at the hospital is small, but there’s another person in the bed opposite of Ray and Michael waves at them apologetically when he comes back in the room for the fifth time in the past four hours. He’s got a bundle of chips and muffins tucked against his chest in his left arm and he’s holding two bottles of water with his right. He passes a bottle and a small bag of Doritos over to where Ray is laying on his hospital bed, dressed down in a breezy hospital gown with a light purple pattern to it.

There’s no one here for Ray besides himself, so Michael plops himself back down heavily in the chair next to Ray’s bed and gets comfortable. Normally Michael would be pissed off that no one came, always the type of person who thinks that no one should be left alone in a hospital, but Ray had already informed him that there was no one to call when they had arrived at the hospital; which ultimately only made Michael even more determined to stay with Ray until he was released, fussing over this and that.

“My hero,” Ray says dramatically, ripping open the bag of chips and popping a chip in his mouth. The crunch is loud and Ray makes a noise akin to a moan and pumps a fist in the air. He hisses immediately after, making an ‘ahh’ noise, and delicately puts his arm back down, cradling it to his chest as if he’s been shot. Or hit by a car. The two are relatively interchangeable.

“Dude, ya’ gotta stop doing that. You only have some slight bruising on your hip from when it hit the fender and then you rolled up my hood, but that doesn’t mean your muscles aren’t going to be sore from that and the tumble to the pavement,” Michael tuts, opening up his own bag of Fritos and putting the muffins to the side while he chows down.

“Hey, man, let me live my life. I’ve had worse than this anyway, I mean, I’ve literally been hit by at least five or six different cars before, though I think you’re the first person that actually stayed and didn’t just drive off after realizing that they hadn’t killed the shit out of me.”

Michael frowns, face serious as he watches Ray shrug off the fact that he’s apparently been hit more than once by cars. It’s not surprising, though, as much as Michael hates to admit it. Ray, he’s found out, is a hitchhiker. Has been for years, which would explain the duffel bag that Ray had used to soften the blow when he fell to the ground after being hit.

Hitchhiking itself is pretty dangerous because of the types of people you could encounter alone, but Michael knows that it also involves a lot of sitting off of the side of the roads and, at night, it’s not that hard to believe that someone could possibly not see Ray (who is, to be honest, a small guy who is pretty easy to miss unless you’re looking for him) and end up hitting him.

However, that doesn’t make Michael feel that great about the fact.

“Dude, stop giving those Fritos the death-stare,” Ray says, making Michael jump and look up at him, “they’ve never done anything to you. If you don’t like the delicious corn chip taste then just hand them over to the guy who’ll love them the right way.” Ray makes a grabby hand gesture for the bag and Michael hands it over wordlessly, despite still being hungry.

The Doritos Ray had been eating are now empty and laying on the other side of Ray’s hip, so Michael leans over and grabs the bag, throwing it away in the trash bin close to him.

“You know I’m really sorry about this, right?” Michael asks, looking over Ray’s body as if he’ll suddenly start bleeding somewhere or lose a leg. “Even if you’re okay and already ready to be released. Like, I’m really sorry, man. I shouldn’t have been dozing off like that at the wheel.”

“No, stop that.” Ray waves away the apology. “You were literally going so slow that an old lady with a cane could have moved out of the way faster. I wasn’t paying attention either.”

Michael opens his mouth to remind Ray that Michael literally hit him with his car, but Ray beats him to it.

“No, dude, seriously. I’m okay. You’re okay. The car, which is kind of less important, is also okay. If anything, I should be saying sorry to you for having to be the one to pay for the hospital bill. I’m just a hitchhiking guy who didn’t even remember to look both ways before crossing the road and doesn’t have the money to cough up to the capitalist hell that is the American health system. This isn’t the blame game, man, don’t worry about it.”

Michael shakes his head, only smiling a little at Ray’s ability to mitigate blame.

“Fine, no one’s to blame, but I’m still in your debt. I owe you, dude. I gotta make it up to you somehow.”

“First of all,” Ray begins, smiling like he’s about to make a joke (which is to say that he’s almost always smiling, because he runs his mouth like no other), “if we were in a Valley porno then this would be the perfect segue for hospital sex.” Michael snorts, rolling his eyes, and he can hear the other patient in the room laugh under their breath too, clearly eavesdropping.

“Second of all,” he continues, unperturbed by the laughing, “you could always take me with you as a karma redemption thing.”

Michael furrows his brow. “Take you where?”

Ray rolls his eyes like it’s obvious. “On your road trip? Where else?”

Michael blinks, shocked. “How did you know? I haven’t said anything about it.”

“Michael, man, you know we’re in Tennessee, right? And your license plate was from New Jersey? It’s not that hard to figure out you’re going somewhere. Plus, as if it weren’t obvious, it’s not like I care about the destination. I just want a ride. I don’t even need to stay with you long if it makes you uncomfortable to drive with some hitchhiker you accidentally mowed over; I can be dropped off at the next town over. I don’t really care.”

Michael watches him curiously for a moment, wondering when exactly Ray saw his license plate, but figures it was probably around the time Michael literally hit him with his car, so. Yeah, maybe he doesn’t really want to know. Did he mention he was sorry already? He should tell Ray he’s sorry again.

“Yeah, man, I don’t mind. You’re all right company as is, anyway, and you can drive with me for as long as you really want. Like shit, dude. I hit you with my car, it’s literally the least I could do.”

“It’s settled then. We’re gonna become the best road trip buddies in no time, mi amigo.”

Ray gives a big face-splitting grin at that, his whole face brightening with it, and Michael’s heart trips over itself for a second before Ray turns his attention from him back to eating the corn chips and watching the bad cop drama on the hospital TV.

Michael’s heart settles and he gnaws thoughtfully on his cheek for a moment, watching Ray and wondering if this is going to end up being a bad idea. After a few seconds of blatant staring, he turns to look at the TV as well, figuring that watching Ray is a pretty creepy thing to do.

The next time the doctor comes in it’s to tell Ray that his X-rays are all clear and that there’s nothing wrong with him other than a few bruises and he’s free to go as soon as they get all of the paperwork ready.

•••

By the time they’re out of the hospital it’s light outside and the birds are alighting in the hospital’s small side garden. Ray, who wanted to leave in a wheelchair so he could make Charles Xavier references while waiting in the elevator on the way down to the triage station, is currently rolling himself around while Michael pulls his car up to the front so Ray doesn’t have to walk too much while still sore.

Michael meets Ray at the trunk of his car when he parks at the drop off area, no longer in the wheelchair after the nurse who came down with him took it back when he was finished with it, and he takes the duffel bag from Ray’s hands so he doesn’t strain himself (Ray thanks him, calling him sweetheart for effect as if they’re a married couple, and Michael only blushes a little at the nickname), but the duffel is surprisingly light and Michael wonders if Ray keeps more than a change of clothes in the bag, despite its size.

“Wait,” Ray tells him before he gets the chance to close the trunk. Ray shoulders him aside and unzips the bag, digging around until he pulls out a small black case that, when he pops it open, reveals a pair of glasses.

“Always keep a spare pair of glasses, Michael. Rule number one of living the life of someone who can’t see for shit.” He puts them on and wiggles his fingers. “Do I look good? Don’t answer that, I already know I do.” He closes the trunk, the sound blocking out Michael’s quiet laugh. “Come on, let’s get this show on the road.”

•••

Ray is messing around with the dials on the car radio when Michael slaps his hands away blindly.

“Stop changing the music every five seconds.”

“Hey, that’s easier said than done when you’re not the one dying from boredom.”

Michael rolls his eyes. “Ray, we’ve literally only been driving for about two hours now. We haven’t even left Tennessee yet.”

“Well it’s not my fault that my DS is still in my duffel in the trunk.”

“Ray,” Michael explains flatly, “that sounds like it’s exactly your fault for leaving it in there before putting it in the trunk. Besides, you can always just crawl in the back and pull the back seat down; it opens up to the trunk so we wouldn’t even have to stop for you to get it. It’s not that hard.”

“Hey, man, if you want to risk getting pulled over by a cop like that then fine by me.” Ray unbuckles his seat belt and unceremoniously crawls over the center console and into the back seat, his foot almost kicking Michael in the face as he does it.

When Ray plops himself back into the passenger seat he’s now equipped with a purple DS and a Hershey’s bar that looks suspiciously like it’s been flattened by the weight of a guy who was just hit by a car and Michael eyes it up suspiciously from the corner of his eyes.

Ray, thankfully, leaves the radio alone after that and Michael manages to hear full songs without constant interruptions. Until, that is, when his DS dies and Ray groans loudly about his Pokemon.

•••

Ray, Michael finds out the next day, cannot drive. Which Michael supposes explains why he is always hitchhiking, but he’s honestly shocked. After all, Ray is around his age, just a few years younger, and he doesn’t know how anyone his age could make it that far without getting a license. But, then again, Michael is also a really flighty person and constantly needs to get out of the house. He’s always been that way, even when he was younger.

Ray ends up telling him that he’s never been that kind of person, that he used to go directly home after school and never really left the house much even when his friends were throwing parties and making plans to go to the mall or hang out at parks. He’d go to the movies, though, any time he was asked. His friends eventually noticed the pattern, but teenagers don’t always have the money to blow on going to the movies every night, so he still was in his house more often than not.

Michael wants to ask what changed. How someone goes from never leaving the house to being someone without a home who hitchhikes with no real destination in mind. How Ray is always on the move even though he used to stay stationary and actively declined invitations to go out.

He doesn’t ask, though, because he doesn’t want to pry. He’ll let Ray have his privacy. It’s not like he’s entitled to knowing everything about Ray just because they’re on a road trip together. Ray’s his own person after all, even if Michael is wildly curious.

•••

They’ve worked out a system by the end of their first week on the road, one where Michael drives for a few hours a day and then they’ll walk around and check out the town they’ve ended up at on their drive before checking into a motel or sleeping in the car.

They visit libraries a lot because they need a place to charge their stuff and Ray likes to browse the comic section while Michael watches their things. If Michael is feeling up to it they’ll try to visit all of the tourist places and eat something other than restaurant or gas station food. Mostly, though, they just sit outside the car and talk until they’re sleepy.

Ray doesn’t really seem to mind what they do, either. He never has much of an opinion on where they go or what they end up eating, but he does insist on the least expensive option more often than not. The dude straight up lives off of the dollar menu at Burger King, it seems. Michael isn’t complaining, though, because it’s not like he has big bucks to blow, but it’s always surprising how Ray buys whatever he can find that’s the cheapest no matter where they go.

But this time they’d ended up eating not much more than some gas station nachos and some protein bars and Michael ended up falling asleep sometime during Ray’s rant about sports teams that Michael couldn’t follow along with.

He wakes up that same night with a blanket over him and a crick in his neck from the odd position he fell asleep at while in the car, body turned towards Ray’s. He blinks his eyes open and is surprised to see that Ray is nowhere to be found, so he rolls his shoulders and stumbles out of the car, drowsiness making him clumsy. It only takes a little bit of walking for him to find Ray.

He’s splayed out in the middle of the field that the car is parked close to, his back to Michael while he watches the dark sky, light from the moon making his body glow softly.

Michael walks over carefully, so as to not disturb the quiet air around them. He rubs at his neck and shoulders, trying to get the ache out of them, but stops when he’s at Ray’s side. Ray doesn’t jump at the sudden intrusion, but he does pat the patch of grass next to him, openly inviting Michael to sit next to him.

“You know,” Ray starts when Michael settles, his voice barely above a whisper, “I’ve been on the road for years now, but I never get over the stars.”

Michael hums in agreement, but doesn’t say much else. Ray doesn’t need to explain, because he gets it. Stars, no matter how far he travels, always take his breath away. It’s something he never really noticed two months ago when he was still living in New Jersey and working, but when you’ve been on the road for a while you start to miss the stationary things, and stars are always the same, right in the exact place you left them no matter how many miles are between you and home.

Suddenly a breeze passes over them and Ray shivers, teeth clattering, and just like the night they met, Michael tugs off his hoodie and hands it over to Ray.

“Put it on, ‘m’not that cold anyway.”

Ray nods, mumbles a quiet, “Thanks, man,” and pulls the hoodie over his head, ruffling his hair in the process and setting his glasses askew and low on the edge of his nose.

Michael laughs at the soft and disheveled puppy look Ray’s got going on, leaning over to push Ray’s glasses back up his nose and then cards his fingers through Ray’s hair to try and tame it, getting caught on a few knots along the way, before he freezes with his hand still in Ray’s hair, realizing that maybe he shouldn’t just start fixing Ray up when Ray didn’t ask for him to. Like maybe invading someone’s personal space like that is a bad move.

“Shit, sorry, man,” Michael apologizes, quickly pulling his hand away while Ray watches him cooly, his face a blank concentrated expression like he’s trying really hard not to say something. Probably wanting to tell Michael off.

“It’s okay,” Ray says simply with another one of those small shrugs that he’s in the habit of preferring over actual words, instead of saying whatever he must really be thinking. “It’s nice to be fussed over sometimes. My ma’ used to do that a lot.”

"No, I really shouldn’t just touch you like that without asking first, it’s just that your hair was all—” he makes a vague sticking up gesture “—and your glasses were falling off and, okay, you probably could have fixed it yourself but I’m really impulsive and my friends are always on my case about it and—”

Michael cuts himself off to take a breath, realizing that he’s rambling, but Ray’s eyes are crinkling and his mouth is quirked up at the corners like he’s amused.

He lets his shoulders drop from where they’ve climbed up to his ears and scratches at an earlobe. “And I was rambling. Sorry. For, like, both of those things. Or, like, everything? Sorry for the touching and the rambling and the whole hitting-you-with-my-car thing.”

Ray chuckles lightly, “Michael, man, you’ve really got to let that go and lighten up. I told you, it’s happened before and I’m fine anyway. No biggie.”

“Just because it happens to you a lot doesn’t mean it’s okay, Ray. You shouldn’t just have to accept that these things keep happening to you.”

Ray rolls his eyes, “Okay, _mom_. I’ll just sue you for hitting me with your car, okay? Would that make you happy?”

Michael shrugs, admitting, “Hey, you have every right to. I probably should have done it for you when it happened, actually. It was really dumb of me not to, I know the general protocol and everything. You deserve to be thought about and I don’t know why I wasn’t focusing on what you needed more.”

“Jesus Christ, dude, just shut the fuck up and enjoy the stars with me,” Ray groans, avoiding his eyes and pulling the hood up on his hoodie, tugging the drawstrings down until his whole face is almost swallowed up by the fabric except for where his glasses end up sticking out bulkily.

He could be wrong, the night sky making it hard to see, but he swears Ray’s cheeks were turning blotchy and pink before he hid them from Michael. He smiles softly at the thought, but shuts up and turns to look back at the stars like Ray suggested, even if he thinks privately that he’d enjoy watching Ray more.

•••

Ray is asleep in the back seat when Michael pulls up to the nearest rest stop. He’s swaddled up in the blanket Michael had bought for him a few days ago when he realized that it was way too difficult for the both of them to try and share the only blanket Michael had while sleeping in two different seats, and he’s currently drowning in Michael’s hoodie as well, drooling slightly on the side of the actual hood itself.

It’s been a few days since Michael gave it for him to wear, but Ray hasn’t really given it back since, and he continues to wear it whenever he gets cold. And it’s not like Michael minds or anything. Actually, if anything, Michael finds that he thinks it’s nice. Which is in and of itself confusing, because Michael doesn’t usually like to share things — which was always a problem growing up in his household, as his family has always been about sharing equaling caring — but he doesn’t seem too bothered by it when it’s Ray.

He looks at Ray in the rear view mirror one last time before climbing out of the car and stretching his legs, jogging in place for a second to let the aches from driving for so long leech out of him. He walks over to the opposite side of the car and opens the back door, careful as ever as he leans inside and shakes Ray’s leg, mumbling his name until Ray jolts up, clearly confused.

“Wha?” Ray asks intelligently, voice thick and rough from lack of use, looking around the car until his gaze finally lands on Michael.

“We’re at a rest stop. Do you need to go to the bathroom or anything? Or should I just leave you back here?”

“‘m fine. Sleepy. Go on,” Ray mumbles, already turning himself around in the back seat so he can bury his face in the worn down leather of the seats.

Michael laughs, endeared as Ray makes soft snuffling sounds, but closes the door behind him after locking it, just in case. He gets Ray a Keebler peanut butter and crackers snack from the vending machine when he’s done in the bathroom and gets back in the car as quietly as possible so as to not wake him up again.

•••

“Dude, Vegeta over Goku any day!” Ray argues from the passenger seat, his head sticking halfway out of the window while Michael drives down an empty stretch of road somewhere in Oklahoma.

“Why do I have the feeling you’re only saying that because of that stupid ‘Over 9,000’ meme? You know Goku was the one whose Power Level was over 9,000, right? Not Vegeta.”

“Okay, we get it, you watch anime, brag about it some more why don’t you,” Ray suggests sarcastically.

Without missing a beat Michael points out that, “I caught you reading a Sailor Moon manga at the library not even five days ago, Ray. I bet you watch anime too, asshole. You probably jerk it to that hentai shit, for all I know, while some of us with class watch the good stuff: aka Dragon Ball Z and Naruto.”

“I’m deeply insulted,” Ray retorts seriously, as if Michael just shit all over Ray’s family honor. “But is Naruto a classic now? It’s pretty new, right? Shouldn’t you say something like that one with the James Bond opening?”

Michael rolls his eyes, “You mean Bebop?”

“Sure,” Ray agrees unconvincingly, “I definitely know what that is.”

Michael laughs and doesn’t say anything else, switching the subject to talk about where they should go to get something to eat, because his stomach is killing him.

•••

Later that same day Michael starts humming the Cowboy Bebop theme song and Ray scares him half to death by suddenly gasping, snapping his fingers and turning to Michael to all but shout, “That’s it! That’s the James Bond anime!”

Michael holds his hand to his chest like a southern belle who just heard a curse word for the first time in their life and tries to pretend like his heart isn’t beating faster than he can keep up with it.

“Right,” he says, trying to keep the startled tone out of his voice, “so Cowboy Bebop, just like I said.”

“Nice, man. Keep humming it, I want to learn it too.”

So Michael does.

 •••

It’s late at night and Michael is sitting on one side of their motel room while Ray stands on the other side, a bag of popcorn in one hand while he holds a single piece in the other, hand poised in the air to line up the shot.

“Okay,” Ray says while nodding to Michael, “open your mouth and say, ‘ahh.’”

Michael doesn’t humor Ray by making any noises, but he does stick his tongue out and wait. Ray throws the piece of popcorn and Michael dives up for it, having to get off of the bed to reach it, Ray’s aim off and higher than it was supposed to be. He gets it in his mouth, though, and throws his hands up in triumph, standing up and cheering even while chewing on the popcorn.

He’s aware of the crunching at his feet from the large amounts of popcorn he’d already had thrown his way by Ray, but he doesn’t care because Ray comes barreling over not even a second later, crunching even more popcorn into the crummy motel carpet on his way over. And then he’s got his arms wrapped around Michael’s neck in a hug and Michael’s stomach is fluttering at the contact, his heart seemingly skipping a beat and freezing up just like how it always does when Ray gets close to him.

He thaws after a second of Ray’s elated cheering right at his ear and lets his own arms slide over Ray’s waist tentatively, returning the hug back as good as he gets. It’s only for a moment, Ray pulling back so he can do his own version of one of those football touchdown dances, but Michael revels in it all the same.

 •••

They’re driving on a freeway in California when Michael asks Ray about his family. He means for it to just be an easy conversation starter to begin the day with since they started driving, but somehow he ends up upsetting Ray. Or, well, he thinks he’s upset him, but he can’t really tell since Ray just isn’t talking.

His arms are crossed around his chest and he’s slouched himself low in the passenger seat, knees spread wide as if he has all the room in the world to stretch out — except he really doesn’t because Michael’s car isn’t that big and every time Michael touches the gearshift he grazes the back of his hand along Ray’s knee. And every freaking time it feels like he’s been burned and Michael is becoming increasingly aware of the fact that he reacts to the slightest touch from Ray in the same way he reacts to Ryan Reynolds, which is to say that Michael is pretty sure he has a crush.

Which isn’t that surprising, really, because it’s hard not to develop a crush on Ray. In fact, Michael’s pretty sure every person who has every interacted with Ray must have fallen in love with him at least a little bit, because the guy is kind of hilarious and also kind of amazing in every single way; a whirlwind of charismatic laughter and jokes and smart quips that surprise him every time. Because, seriously, how is one single person that funny and witty? Save some for everyone else, Michael wants to tell Ray but he doesn’t.

But he brings up Ray’s family and it must’ve been a nerve, because Ray goes from talking about his favorite video game to staring moodily out of the car window, his hoodie — _Michael’s hoodie_ — swallowing him up and hiding his face to add to the dramatic shift in his mood.

Michael drives on for about three minutes give or take before he can’t deal with it anymore and he apologizes.

“Ray, dude, I’m sorry for bringing it up, okay? Don’t worry about what I asked, right? I didn’t know you wouldn’t want to talk about family or anything and I just wanted to talk about something other than video games for once, because it’s pretty much all we talk about anymore. And, like, it’s been three months since I met you so I just wanted to get to know you better, like, to talk about something less surface. But I get it, man. Everyone has their limits and it’s not like you have to tell me or anything. So I’m sorry, can we go back to talking again? I hate the silent treatment, especially when I didn’t know what I was saying was wrong.”

Ray turns to him and Michael is glad that he has the “I’m driving” excuse to fall back on, because he doesn’t think he could look at Ray right now. He tightens his grip on the wheel and determinedly keeps his eyes on the road, well aware of the weight of Ray’s stare on him.

Ray’s quiet for a long agonizing minute before he snorts, sitting up in his seat some but still keeping his legs open lazily.

“You really know how to talk super fast, you know that?” Ray teases, voice not as severe as Michael was expecting, and he lets out a relieved breath at it.

“I’m gifted,” Michael jokes, desperately clinging on to any reason to make the tension in the car ease. “My best weapon is my tongue.”

Ray chokes on a laugh before he lets it out, holding onto his stomach while he guffaws boisterously and shakes his head, eyes tightly shut like he’s afraid that he’ll laugh so hard they’ll pop out. Michael grins and chances a look at him from the corner of his eyes for only a second, because a second is all he needs for the nervousness to ease from his body and for his heart to start doing that hiccuping thing that it tends to do around Ray.

“But it’s cool, man. I know you didn’t mean anything by it. You didn’t know that it was a sensitive subject for me and sometimes I like... I guess I sorta just clam up when I talk about it? But I want to know about your family and stuff too, I want to know all about you, man. But it takes time for these things, you know?” Ray breathes a small sigh and then shakes a little, like he’s gearing up for something.

“But I don’t like talking about my family because I don’t really have one anymore. I mean, remember when I told you forever ago that I didn’t have anyone you needed to call when we were going to the hospital? I meant that. I don’t have anyone who cares about me like that, not anymore.”

Ray’s voice sounds so quiet when he talks like this, so vulnerable and open, and Michael’s chest hurts just from hearing it. From hearing the way Ray’s throat must be constricting around the words, so close to crying just from thinking about it. Michael wants to tell him that he cares, but he also doesn’t want to give away his feelings, scared that he’ll do nothing more than freak Ray out.

“I’m a hitchhiker because I don’t have that. A family. Or a home. They kicked me out when I was twenty because of some bullshit about how I was living my life and shit. I didn’t want to work at the place my dad did and then my mom had this whole thing with trying to control and micromanage my life and like...” Ray trails off, licking his lips and trying to get the words right.

Michael turns off an exit ramp and drives until he can pull over on the side of the road, turning his full attention to Ray because he feels like Ray deserves that much, at least. And the sight of Ray like this, his hands fisted and his gaze focused down at a random point near his feet, eyes foggy with tears he won’t dare to let spill and his lips turning down every time he speaks, so blatantly unhappy, has Michael desperately wanting to reach over and hug him.

But he won’t, because this feels important. Like Ray needs to let this out. Like maybe he’s never had the chance to before.

So Michael sits there and waits, his own hands clenching in the fabric of his jeans to keep from grabbing for Ray and trying to console him.

“Like I wanted out anyway, right? I wanted to move out and live on my own and to not have to worry about their rules and the things they wanted me to be or do. Like I was twenty, right? I could live on my own if I wanted to. But then they kicked me out. No warning, just one day I was being forced out of the house and the locks changed and I was on my own. Just like that.” Ray snaps his fingers to make his point, and Michael pretends like he doesn’t notice when Ray swipes a quick hand over his face, cheeks wet.

He never sees Ray like this. Sad, he guesses. Introspective and honest and crying, and Michael sort of feels like he’s falling apart right along with Ray. He’s always been a sympathetic person — not exactly the _most_ sympathetic, but decent enough — and seeing people cry, specifically people he really cares about, is the worst.

“And I know I’m supposed to be above this, or whatever. People always say that you should just move on from people in your life who are negative and shit, but they’re my parents, you know? They’re the only family I have. How’m I supposed to just drop them like that? Just forget about them? All of these fake positive infomercial go on and on about how you’re supposed to do that, but I can’t, right? I can’t just stop loving them, not matter how shit they were to me and how little they must care about me to just dump me like that. Like they didn’t raise me.”

Ray shudders, shaking his head like it’ll keep the tears away, like it’ll help him cope.

“So I can’t talk about my family with you, because it’s not there for me. It was, a long time ago, but it’s not anymore. I don’t even have their numbers anymore,” he laughs bitterly, “so even if I wanted to I just couldn’t.”

Ray sniffles loudly, turning to Michael and wiping his face off with the sleeves of Michael’s hoodie, pulling them down over his knuckles to do it.

“So how ‘bout you, huh? How’s the family life for you?” Ray asks, really trying not to sound as broken as he feels.

Michael doesn’t even answer him, just leans across the center console and pulls Ray to him, his arms wrapping tightly around Ray’s center. Ray digs his face into the crook of Michael’s neck, getting the area wet and messy, and Michael holds him there for what feels like hours. Until Ray’s shoulders stop shaking and his breaths come in even. And then until they come in deep. Until Michael hears Ray start to lightly snore and realizes that he’s fallen asleep and that it’s been well over an hour, now lunch time instead of the early morning.

So Michael carefully lays Ray back in his seat, his body twisting uncomfortably to do so without waking him. And when he starts the car up he finds himself changing directions back to New Jersey.

•••

They’re in some part of Iowa when Ray turns to Michael and asks him, as serious as ever, if he’s ever made out with a dude.

Michael, trying very carefully not to swerve into oncoming traffic or off the side of the road at the sudden switch in conversation. And because Michael is an adult who is fully in control of his body, he maturely says, “I’mdon’tknowwhat?” which roughly translates to, “Oh my god, where did that come from?”

Ray laughs though, bright and chirpy and like he doesn’t mind Michael’s lack of tact. “I mean, like, are you gay or whatever? I’m not coming onto you or anything, it’s just that you’ve never really specified and I’ve only ever heard you talk about guys that were attractive. And that’s not to say that you can’t think guys look good without being gay, but like how homo are you? Because my I’d-blow-a-dude-dar — similar to a gaydar, except more gay and flashy — is going off the charts here.”

Michael honestly hates how he kind of wishes Ray was coming onto him.

“I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Michael hedges instead of actually answering, keeping his grip on the wheel steady. Reminding himself that Ray probably isn’t a piece of shit and wouldn’t insult him or run away from him. It’s 2016, after all, not everyone is homophobic and Ray deserves the benefit of the doubt.

“Dude,” Ray says, tapping Michael’s shoulder with the back of his knuckles lightly, “I’m the gayest person I know, you’re not gonna make me uncomfortable. We’re just a couple of guys being dudes, asking about gayness while on a road trip together. Strictly platonic.”

Ray cheeses brightly, his whole face a sunbeam, and Michael’s insides melt so easily, shoulders slackening. His mind keeps tripping over Ray’s offhanded comment about being gay and it really shouldn’t give him so much hope, but he’s starting to feel like it’s 2008 and Barack Obama is running for president for the first time.

•••

Ray is in the middle of sleepily telling Michael a story about the first time he ever hitchhiked before in an effort to keep himself awake — how an old black woman in a minivan pulled up to him and asked if he needed a ride home because even at twenty Ray looked like he was somewhere around the age of fifteen, and how he’d asked her to drop him off a short distance away from a twenty-four hour Wal-Mart that he ended up sleeping in for the night, hidden behind the stacks and stacks of toilet paper and paper towels — when Michael pulls into the first motel parking lot he’s seen for miles.

Ray gathers their stuff — which isn’t a lot, just his duffel bag and Michael’s backpack and similar duffel — while Michael gets them a room. The only room available is a single, but Michael doesn’t mind it and he and Ray are both tired, having been driving for five hours straight, so it’s not like they’re going to go anywhere else, so ready to get out from the car and into a real place again.

He helps Ray bring the bags in and sighs heavily the second he face-plants onto the bed, the covers smelling of cigarette smoke and Febreze, like someone tried to cover up the fact that they were smoking but only ended up making it even more obvious. Michael doesn’t mind, closing his eyes and getting his arms under himself so he can keep them warm.

He completely forgets that Ray is even there with him until he hears Ray groan and clear his throat loudly, hand pushing at Michael’s shoulder.

“Hey, shove over, asshole, I’ve gotta sleep too,” Ray reminds him, pushing extra hard on his shoulder when Michael doesn’t immediately move.

“Okay, okay,” Michael mumbles into the bed, so really it probably comes out as, “Omphay, omphay.”

He rolls over until he’s on the other side of the bed, no longer directly in the middle, and back on his stomach, toeing his shoes off his heels with his feet and then kicking them away. Ray’s weight presses down onto the bed and Michael can feel the warmth of his arm brushing against his, the bed not nearly big enough for the two of them, really.

“Did ya’ lock the door?” he asks, turning his head to the side so his voice doesn’t sound so muffled, but he doesn’t bother with opening his eyes.

“Mhm,” Ray mumbles, throwing his hand out to to pat Michael’s shoulder reassuringly. “All locked and everything’s already put away, I got your back, dear.”

Michael snorts at the endearment, but doesn’t bother to say anything else and falls asleep just like that, without even getting the chance to cover up or take off his jeans, which he’ll probably regret in the morning when his legs hurt, but he’s too tired to care. The bed is warm, the dip of it pressing Ray close to him, and the room is so quiet that it’s easy for him to drop off in seconds.

 

•••

He wakes up the next morning with Ray curled into his side, a leg thrown over Michael’s and his face buried in the space between the bedspread and Michael’s shoulder. The light from the morning sun filters in through the curtains, dust motes rising in the rays the muted light gives off, and some of the sunshine hits the skin of Ray’s arm, his ear, the swell of his slightly exposed hip, shirt having ridden up during his sleep.

Michael is still laying on his stomach, so he has to turn his head in a slightly painful angle to make sure that it really is Ray and not some random creep who got in the room and decided to cuddle up to Michael. He smiles softly when he does, not surprised to see that Ray has seemingly pulled out the extra length from the cover underneath him and curled it around the bottom of his body, too lazy to actually get off the bed and get under the covers, but too cold to just stay uncovered.

“Ray,” Michael whispers, twisting so he can roll away from Ray and onto his side, patting Ray’s cheek with his hand. “Ray, c’mon, ya’ gotta wake up. Places to be and all...”

He pauses to stretch his arms out, hearing the pop of his joints from being in the same position for so long, and it must jostle Ray because he makes a quiet snuffling noise and then scoots closer to Michael while seeking out warmth, burying his face against Michael’s chest and trapping his arms between them, and then Michael is left with nowhere to put his own arms except for around Ray, so he does.

He means to try to wake Ray up again, but his eyelids dip, rise, dip, rise, and before he knows it he’s falling back to sleep, Ray’s warmth at his chest and slight breath fanning against his collarbone.

•••

When Michael wakes up the second time it’s to find Ray’s spot of the bed empty, but the sheets that he was laying on are flipped over to cover Michael up.

Michael’s jaw splits wide open on a yawn, his whole body stretching with it from his hands to his toes, and he sits up to rub at his eye and look around for Ray. He sees Ray in the bathroom across from the bed, the door open wide while Ray stands in front of the mirror and brushes his teeth.  
Michael stumbles up and makes his way into the bathroom, hand brushing over Ray’s hip so he knows he’s there and doesn’t freak when Michael passes over the mirror behind him.

Michael pees, Ray still standing there brushing his teeth and now telling Michael about how he had a dream where he was forced to play the real life version of Monopoly, and then he ambles over to wash his hands, waiting to rinse the soap off until after Ray spits the foam in his mouth in the sink.

“Man, we really need to start packing our own toothpaste, because this motel toothpaste sucks,” Ray warns him, handing the toothpaste over so Michael can squirt some paste on his toothbrush before running it under the tap water.

“‘S’not that bad,” he says around a mouthful of foam, snorting when Ray smiles at him in the mirror, all teeth with his toothbrush still in his mouth and some foam oozing down his chin. “Stop being disgusting, wipe that shit off your chin.”

And, because Ray is an asshole like himself, he leans over and rubs his foamy chin on Michael’s shoulder, leaving a wet mark on Michael’s shirt. And Michael would retaliate by dumping the whole tube out on Ray, but he’s still kind of sleepy and doesn’t feel like putting too much energy into anything just yet.

“I’ll get payback for that later,” he says as darkly as he can manage when his hair sticking up everywhere like he’s a troll doll, utterly unintimidating. He rinses his mouth out with water and spits it into the sink. Ray’s already finished brushing his teeth but he’s still standing next to Michael with his hands at his sides, smiling to himself softly.

“What?” Michael asks, lifting the bottom of his shirt up to pat his mouth dry, and then using his other hand to hold onto the back of Ray’s neck, thumbing his jaw so he tilts his head back some so he can pat Ray’s chin dry next, because it’s still shinning.

It’s easy, Ray letting him do it without fussing, and Michael lets go after a second so he can exit the bathroom and go to his duffel to get some clean clothes, but before he can move away Ray reaches out and grabs his wrist, surprising him. Ray just sort of holds his wrist there for a second, thumb brushing along the soft skin on Michael’s inner wrist, and Michael watches him do it with his brows furrowed.

“Can I?” Ray asks, voice doing that thing where it goes so quiet Michael thinks it’s not supposed to be heard, but clearly it was, because Ray’s asking him a question here.

Michael looks up to try and garner what Ray means, but Ray is looking at his lips and, _well_. It’s not that hard to guess what he means by that. So Michael nods, the tiniest movement, like he’ll scare Ray off if he moves too much.

Ray comes closer then, stepping more into Michael’s space and letting go of his wrist so he can bring his hands up to Michael’s cheeks, thumbs pressing at the divots between Michael’s cheekbones and lower jaw so Michael opens his mouth and then he’s kissing him.

Motel toothpaste heavy on his tongue and tasting like mint, his lips soft and gentle against Michael’s, tongue brushing across the roof of his mouth and making his toes curl. And it’s so intimate, so slow, and Michael kind of feels like he’s shattering into a million pieces all at once, but Ray is there. Ray with his perpetually warm hands and his scruffy jaw and his glasses that are really starting to get in the way. Ray, so open and honest with Michael, so sweet with him and malleable when he wants to be. Ray, who kisses him like he’s wanted to kiss him for ages, who backs Michael up against the counter and keeps him there until his jaw hurts, until he’s panting for breath because Ray keeps kissing him until Michael’s lungs are struggling to catch up with him.

Ray, funny and quiet and always so, so forgiving. Ray, who pulls away to breathe against Michael’s jaw and says, as lighthearted as always, “I guess this is good morning.”

And Michael laughs because yeah, he guesses it is.

•••

“So,” Ray says while they’re driving through New Jersey six days later, “we’re kind of a domestic married couple, right? Think about what we’ll have to tell people when they ask how we met. Party gold.”


End file.
